


Work Lunch

by Ingridarcher



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:49:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7138625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingridarcher/pseuds/Ingridarcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Genji and Mercy have a quiet meal not too long after his robo-form surgery. A prompt from my blog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work Lunch

She invited him every day, and he never came.

Two weeks ago they’d finally got the synthetic neuro-receptors right, and she’d advised a bit of walking to get used to using the mechanical limbs. Two weeks, and he was still in bed. She asked if the receptors needed more tweaking, but he shook his head then looked back at the curtained window.

Every day, she invited him to come to the HQ cafeteria and have lunch with her. He never came.

“Ugh, that stuff again?” Lena pinched her nose and stuck out her tongue as Angela pulled the Kalberwurst from the microwave.

“Relax, I’m going to eat it in my office, to keep all of you,” she smiled and tapped Lena’s nose with a delicate fingernail, “from teasing me.”

“And for the smell, eh?” Lena wrinkled her nose, grinning. Angela shifted the hot dish onto a tray.

“Be careful, or I might slip Helga here the recipe!” Angela said, nodding towards the cafeteria cook. Lena made gagging noises, and Angela lifted her tray and walked towards her office.

She laid out some paperwork to review as she sliced the sausage into bite-sized, gravy-drenched morsels. She tsked at herself when a greasy onion slithered off her fork and onto an early release form. She was searching her confounded computer for the digital copy when she heard a knock.

“Come in,” she said, without looking up from her screen. She heard the door open and shut and waited for whoever it was to start talking. They didn’t. She looked up.

“Genji?” she hummed, astonished, pulling her glasses down. “Sit down. What can I help you with?”

He didn’t answer, his expressing hidden under his hooked helmplate. He wasn’t wearing the lower half, and she could see his black, synthetic jaw. Angela swallowed.

“Is there something wrong with your voice modulation?”

Another pause. “Not…really,” he said. She realized it had been a long time since she’d heard him speak aloud.

“Not really?” she fired back, speaking fast, “Tell me what to fix, I can look at it-”

Genji shook his head. “Nothing is wrong. I just…don’t like the way it sounds.”

Angela simpered. “Ah, right, the silicon vocal folds still sound too synthetic against the larynx modulation. I told the build team I wanted something closer to your original voice, but they said, ‘Dr. Zieglar, we’re on the forefront of cybernetics, you can’t expect-’” She stopped herself. Genji was staring at her microwaved leftovers.

“Did…you come by to ask about the voice modulator?” Angela asked, unsure. Genji shook his head.

“The…nurse said you would be eating in your office today…I…”

Angela lit up with realization. “Oh, for lunch! You’re here for lunch, of course you are, come, sit, what do you want? We should go to the cafeteria, they have-”

“No!” Angela stepped back from how forceful the word was spoken.

“If…you prefer, I could go and get you something to eat?” she offered.

“Can…I?”

“Can you what?” Angela asked.

“Eat,” he said.

Angela smiled with anxious pride, “Well, of course! Certain you don’t have to, you mostly run on solar, but the team and I designed you to perform many-”

Genji stopped her. “Dr. Zieglar,” he said, “With respect, please do not talk to me about how I was…designed.”

Angela opened her mouth, and shut it again. Slowly, she sank down and half-sat on her desk.

“Would you…” she began, grasping, “Like some Kalberwurst?” She extended a delicate hand toward the glass dish she’d nuked her leftovers in. Genji looked at and tilted his head.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Sausage, basically. My father taught me to make it but I don’t know how to make a small batch so I always have some left over.” She smiled a hopeful smile, and offered the dish and fork to Genji. His hands clanked against the glass as he took it. He held the fork awkwardly, stabbed a piece of sausage onto the twines, and popped it in his mouth. The roof of his mouth was pink, fleshy gums and white teeth. The bottom was a titanium frame wrapped in hard, black resin.

“I bring it to my office because the other watchmen always tease me about it smelling awful,” she told him. He chewed it for a long time.

“It does smell awful,” Genji said, “But it tastes alright.”

Angela blinked, then smiled, then laughed. She finally got Genji to sit down. He ate the whole plate. After that she walked with him to his room through the least-used hallways. Jack and Lena and the rest always asked her why she never ate down in the cafeteria anymore, and she would smile and shrug and carry the tray with two plates up to her office. Genji came every day.


End file.
